Entreat Me (35 page)

His eyes, so dark before the last flux, had revealed a wary hope when he presented her with the knife, as if unsure she’d like the piece.  That he offered so fine a gift and in the spirit in which it was given almost brought her to her knees.  Thank the gods she had accepted.  Other than her memories of him, this was the only thing of his she could call hers.

Or so she thought.  A quick shake of the upended satchel gave up a wilted and crushed bit of bittersweet.  A soft sob escaped her as she picked up the piece of tendril and twined it around her finger.  The battered leaf drooped, curled at the edges but still green.  The tears she’d held back since he’d tossed her on Sparrow and sent the horse galloping through the gate flooded her eyes and coursed down her cheeks.

“
Remember me
.”

She collapsed onto the bed, the bittersweet still clutched in her hand, and curled into a ball of misery.  Her closed door and a strategically placed pillow muffled her crying, and she wept until she hiccupped and her eyes swelled nearly shut.

A tickling caress against her ear made her open her eyes.  The bittersweet was no longer a lone tendril.  During her crying jag, it had grown, watered by sorrow, until it spread across the bed in a verdant net and entwined with her hair.  A purple blossom nuzzled her ear before sliding down her neck to wind around her throat.

Louvaen held her breath, waiting.  Beautiful and poisonous, the bittersweet was far more fragile than the castle’s hissing roses, and they fluttered over her skin as lovingly as Ballard’s pale hands.

Her fingers slid along one of the tendrils, gently stroking. 

“
Remember me
.”

A command handed down by a man accustomed to leading armies.  She’d do as he ordered and remember him, not as the serpent-eyed forest king with his horns and claws, but as the somber, sloe-eyed lord who warmed the sheets and loved her through the long winter nights.  His image was the last thing she saw before she fell into an exhausted slumber.

She woke to a dark bedroom.  The bed squeaked as she sat up and scrubbed her face with her hands.  Afternoon had given way to evening while she slept and the filigree of bittersweet had dwindled to the lone tendril she’d carried from Ketach Tor in her satchel.  She cradled it gingerly in her hand and lifted the wilted flower to her mouth for a kiss before placing it on the table next to the queen’s dagger.  Still groggy, she shuffled out of her room and down the stairs.  She found Niamh in the kitchen, shawl wrapped around her shoulders as she prepared to leave.

Niamh gave Louvaen a quick smile.  “I’m for home, Louvaen.  There’s stew on the grate, along with tea.  And bread on the table.”  She set out a cup and fresh pot of tea.  “Your father’s in the parlor reading.   Do you want me to come by tomorrow?”

Though grateful for the offer of help, Louvaen shook her head.  “You’ve your own affairs to attend to, Niamh.  You’re always welcome of course, but if you stop by, do so to keep Papa company.  I’ll be too busy to entertain him.”  She suspected it wouldn’t take much to coax the Widow Cooper over when Mercer was the principal reason to visit.

Her suspicions proved correct when Niamh’s soft features lit up.  She patted Louvaen on the shoulder.  “Tomorrow then.”  She waved as Louvaen called a thank you and disappeared into the parlor.

Louvaen ate her dinner and listened to her father’s and the widow’s murmurings.  She couldn’t make out the words, but the affectionate tones were unmistakable.  There was a short silence before the front door opened on a creak and closed on a click.  Mercer entered the kitchen and settled into his customary seat at the table.  She’d left the enchanted mirror with him earlier, and he held it in his hand, fingers tracing the delicate scrollwork on the back.  “Feel better, Lou?”

“Much better.”  The nap had restored some of her vigor and cooled her anger.  She could think and plan without her blood boiling at the merest thought of Jimenin.  The crying jag had eased the suffocating pressure in her chest, though she wanted nothing more than to leap on Sparrow’s back and spur him back to Ketach Tor.  She poured her father a cup of tea instead and gestured to the mirror.  “Want to see her again?”

He passed it to her.  “You don’t mind?”

“Of course not.  It’s one of the reasons Ambrose gave me the mirror.  Puts my mind at ease to see her and know she’s well.”  She called Cinnia’s name and waited for the mist to clear.  A small part of her hoped her summons might somehow reveal Ballard in the scene.  She hoped in vain.  Ambrose had been careful with his magic, enchanting the mirror to limit the spell’s scope only to Cinnia.  Ballard would make certain he stayed far enough away from her and out of view.

The glass surface filled with the image of Cinnia, and Louvaen recognized the battered table in the Ketach Tor kitchen.  Her sister sat beside Gavin, her lips moving silently as she read from the book in front of her.  Mercer stared into the mirror, entranced.  “I don’t like the circumstances that will bring her home, but I’d be lying if I said I won’t be happy when she gets here.”

Louvaen squeezed his hand.  “She’ll have an entourage with her.  You and I need to figure out where we’ll put everyone.  Do you want to make a few plans tonight?”

He shrugged.  “Why not?  Finish your dinner.  I’ll stoke the fire in the parlor.  Bring the teapot.”

They sat side by side in the parlor and drank two pots of tea between them as they made plans for accommodating a much larger household.  The fire had burned low in the hearth when Mercer gave a huge yawn and stood up.  “I’m off to bed, Lou.  You?”

Still worn out herself, she readily agreed.  They bid each other goodnight at the top of the stairs, and Louvaen watched her father fondly as he scowled at his door before disappearing into his room.  She’d wager he hadn’t slept alone in his room since her return to Ketach Tor.  He missed the comfort of his affectionate neighbor.

Once in her room she readied for bed.  Falling asleep this time wasn’t so easy.  She stared into the blackness above her with dry, gritty eyes.  Her thoughts flitted back and forth between ways to avoid Jimenin and the puzzle of Isabeau’s curse.

Guided by the accepted truths that no curse could withstand true love or its kiss, breaking this one seemed simple.  How very wrong they were.  The nonborn Louvaen had broken one part with her declaration of loving Ballard.  Cinnia had broken a second part by proclaiming her love for Gavin.  The only thing left to breaking the third was for Gavin to remain the faithful son and not attack and Ballard:  or vice versa.

They hadn’t counted on the nature of the curse—almost sentient in its intent to fulfill its caster’s will.  It had reacted like a rat cornered, raising a flux that sent Ballard into paroxysms of madness and pain and transformed Gavin into an abomination.  No matter Ambrose’s powerful magic or the devotion of the women who loved them, the two men would have to save themselves and each other.  Louvaen struggled to find hope in such an outcome when the next flux promised to reduce them both to creatures of unthinking savagery.  That the two would turn on and destroy each other seemed inevitable.

Jimenin’s worrisome deceptions were nothing compared to this disaster.  “Such misery you have wrought, Isabeau,” she said before drifting off to sleep.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Louvaen awakened to a foul-smelling hand clamped over her mouth.  She swung her fist, surprising her attacker with a blow to the head that numbed her arm.  He grunted and jerked away.  Louvaen lunged from the bed, kicking and flailing as the man pawed the hem of her night rail.  She fell against the table, knocking the wrapped dagger to the floor.  Her hand closed around the hilt, and she landed one last kick on the intruder before bolting for the door.  A thud sounded behind her—a body tripping over the chest at the foot of her bed—followed by a round of curses.

Ribbons of moonlight spilled through her father’s open bedroom door, providing the only illumination in the hallway.  Louvaen’s heart, already pounding in her chest, jumped to her throat.  “Oh no,” she whispered.  “Papa.”  She sprinted toward the stairs, clawing frantically at the dagger.  Wrapped and sheathed, it was useless to her.

She was balanced on the top tread when a tremendous force struck her from behind and sent her flying.  Louvaen twisted, dropping the dagger to clutch empty air before her hands tore into cloth and lacings.  A startled cry echoed hers, and the man who had sneaked into her room toppled down the stairs with her.  Her head smacked the wall and then the edge of a stair as they pitched toward the first floor and crashed sideways through the banister before coming to a halt.

Dizzy and certain she’d broken at least one something, Louvaen kicked herself free of her attacker and staggered to her feet.  He lay unmoving next to her dagger in a watery pool of moonlight.  She lunged for the blade, snatching it close.  The sinister click of a flintlock being cocked froze her in place.

“Hold, Louvaen or I splatter Mercer’s brains all over your pretty parlor.”

Had there ever been a voice more hated than Gabrilla Jimenin’s?  Louvaen braced a hand against the wall to steady herself and peered into the flock of shadows shifting and turning before her.  She squinted in the sudden brightness of a lit oil lamp and spotted her father gagged and bound in one of the parlor chairs.  His eyes were huge as he struggled against his bonds.

“What have you done to my father, you pig?”

Jimenin, his face bisected by the scabbed wound she’d given him that day, clucked and shook his head.  “No need for name-calling, mistress.  I haven’t done anything to him.  I needed him quiet for a moment until you came downstairs.”  He eyed the destroyed banister and his unconscious henchman.  “Not quite what I envisioned when I sent that idiot to fetch you.  He was supposed to drag you down the stairs, not throw you down them.”

Jimenin stood next to her father, a loaded flintlock resting casually in his hand and pointing just as casually at Mercer’s head.  He was armed with a sword and brace of pistols and was garbed in black traveling leathers.  His men surrounded him—at least a dozen crowded into her small parlor; wolves waiting to do their leader’s bidding.

Mercer inhaled a harsh breath when Jimenin jerked the gag down.  “Lou!  Are you all right?”

Jimenin snorted and mocking laughter filled the room.  “It’d take a lot more than a tumble down the stairs to defeat that vicious tarleather you sired, Mercer.  Look who’s down and who’s standing.”  He gestured to his still senseless minion and motioned to another.  “See if he’s dead.  If not, rouse him.  We need to leave soon.”  He pointed to Louvaen’s covered dagger.  “Put whatever that is on the floor and kick it to me.”

She clutched the hilt tighter.  She wouldn’t hesitate if he’d asked for her night rail, willing to stand naked before a host of thieving lackeys than give up the one physical reminder she had of Ballard.  “It’s just a hairbrush,” she lied, already mourning the inevitable loss.

“I wouldn’t trust you with a wooden spoon.  Hand it over.”  He emphasized his impatience at her stalling by nudging Mercer with the pistol.

She placed the dagger gently on the floor, a clear indication that what she held was far more precious than a hairbrush.  One of Jimenin’s henchmen handed the bundle to his master.

The don shook the dagger free of the silk.  His eyes lit with an avaricious gleam at first sight of the sheath.  “Far more interesting than a wooden spoon,” he said softly.  He handed the flintlock to the man who’d given him the knife and unsheathed the blade.  Admiring murmurs from his men accompanied his low whistle.  Louvaen’s teeth ground together.  He glanced at her, then at the blade before settling a longer stare on her.  “This is either a gift from one warrior to another or one lover to another.  Which is it, Mistress Duenda?”

“None of your business, you thieving gleet.”   The idea he’d guess her relationship with Ballard sent a crawling shudder down her spine.

He shrugged, sheathed the knife and tucked it into his belt.  “No matter.  I now have a fine weapon to add to my collection.”  He smirked at her growl and reclaimed the flintlock.

“What do you want, Jimenin?”  Mercer addressed his captor for the first time since Jimenin had removed the gag.

The other man’s smirk widened to a grin, flashing a mouth full of stained, yellowed teeth.  “You know what I want, and you’ll tell me how I can get her.”

Louvaen rolled her eyes—the only parts of her that didn’t ache after her hurtle down the stairs.  By all the gods, would this never end?  “Cinnia is married, Jimenin.  Why can’t you leave her alone?  Leave us alone?”

“Because I get what I want, and a hasty marriage isn’t an obstacle.  Especially when that sop de Lovet is her husband.”

Since this entire debacle began, Louvaen had dealt with Jimenin on her own and preferred it that way.  Now she wished the “sop, de Lovet” was here so he could make Jimenin eat his own teeth.  A thin, horrified gasp escaped her when he reached inside his doublet and pulled out the silver mirror.

“You’ve brought some exceptional items home with you this time.  A dagger fit for royalty and a mirror blessed with magic.”

“You’re an idiot,” she said flatly.  “The mirror has no more magic than my teapot.”

He trailed a finger across the rim where glass met silver.  “Too late, mistress.  I found your father bidding a most affectionate good night to the very accommodating Dame Cooper this evening.  They had an enlightening conversation about this special bit of vanity right there on your doorstep.”

Louvaen cut a hard glance at her father who went ashen.  “I had no idea, Lou!  I never saw anyone out there.”

She took pity on him.  They’d both underestimated Jimenin.  “I wouldn’t have looked either, Papa.”  Her lip curled into a sneer.  “Decent folk don’t go sliving about in the dark, lurking at other people’s windows and doors to hear private conversations.”

Jimenin remained maddeningly impervious to her scorn, his face a gloating mask of triumph.  “Summon her, Louvaen.”  He dragged her name out in mocking syllables.  She slowly raised a hand and offered him an unmistakable gesture.  His answering scowl silenced his men’s muffled laughter.  He pressed the end of the flintlock’s barrel against Mercer’s temple.  “Kill your father or betray your sister.”  The toothy smile returned.  “Nasty choice isn’t it, bitch?”

If she didn’t think her enemy would savor the moment and relish in his refusal, she’d fall to her knees and beg him for mercy.  Cinnia would never forgive her if something happened to their father.  Mercer wouldn’t forgive her if something happened to Cinnia.

“Raise the mirror higher,” she said.

Mercer yanked on his bonds.  “Louvaen, don’t.”

She had no choice.  “Show me Cinnia.”

The familiar mist clouded the glass before clearing.  Jimenin turned the mirror away from her.  His face flushed in the dim light, and he licked his lips.  Louvaen recoiled.  The gods only knew what her summons had revealed; what privacy and dignity she’d destroyed for her sister to save her father.  She wanted nothing more than to slap the grin off Jimenin’s face.

He stared into the glass, hand gliding over the silver frame as if he stroked Cinnia’s skin.  “Now that’s a sight to pump to.”  He mimicked his words by thrusting his hips forward.

“Shut your filthy mouth, you vile bastard.”  Mercer, goaded beyond his natural passivity, glared.

“Just complimenting your beautiful daughter, Mercer.”  Jimenin frowned at the glass, and Louvaen guessed the image had faded, leaving his own far less sublime reflection staring back at him.  He tucked the mirror into his doublet near his heart.  “You’ll be summoning her again soon,” he told Louvaen.  “I’ll want more than a brief glimpse.”

Not if she could help it.  Magic or not, glass broke.  If she couldn’t crack Jimenin’s head in two like she wanted, she’d do her damndest to make sure the mirror met a similar fate.  Another thought occurred to her.  No doubt if she was summoning Cinnia’s image with her mirror, then Cinnia or someone else summoned hers in the other one.  If fortune favored her, they’d soon get an eyeful of her situation.  Ambrose would take measures to shield Cinnia.  She stiffened when Jimenin turned the pistol from her father to level it on her.

“How does it feel, mistress,” he taunted.  “Being on the wrong end of one of these?”  The earlier lust that made his eyes gleam now gave way to a flat hatred.

Her toes curled against the cold floor, the instinct to leap out of the pistol’s line of fire strong.  Reason prevailed.  He’d shoot her if she so much as twitched sideways.  She raised her chin.  “As any person in such a predicament might feel.  The difference is I haven’t pissed myself.  Did you?”

Jimenin’s expression froze at her mocking reminder of his own terror and how he fled her house when she’d threatened to shoot him.  The flintlock wavered in his grip.  Time halted, and every breath she inhaled and exhaled howled in her ears.  Perspiration trickled down her sides.  Never before had she so deeply regretted not keeping her tongue between her teeth.  She’d compromised her survival, as well as Mercer’s by heaping contempt on an enemy who clearly held an advantage over her.  A reluctant apology hung on her lips, bitter as wormwood.

He didn’t give her a chance to apologize.  He lowered the pistol, closed the distance between them and smashed his fist into her face.

Pain exploded in her head.  She careened into the wall, ricocheting back in a shower of plaster.  His second blow caught her as she pivoted and drove her to her knees.  His boot to her ribs put her on the floor, where she promptly spewed up the blood filling her mouth.

She drew her knees to her chest, wheezing bloody bubbles as she fought to breathe.  He’d taken her breath with that kick, and her vision grayed.  One sweet gulp of air slid down her throat in an agonized gasp, followed by another and then a third until she no longer thought she’d suffocate.

Mercer’s horrified cries buzzed in her ears, but Jimenin’s voice rang clear.  “Your turn, Mercer.  Tell me where Cinnia is and how I can find her, or I’ll kick every one of this bitch’s ribs in and flense the skin off her bones while you watch.”

Half blinded and nauseous from the iron taste of blood trickling down her throat, she struggled to raise her head and command her father to say nothing.  A red tide of pain held her down, washing from her scalp to her throbbing jaw.  Every breath hammered against her ribs.  She lay there, listening while Jimenin threatened Mercer.

Her tears stung the split at the corner of her mouth when Mercer said in a broken voice.  “Ketach Tor.  The mirror is a beacon to de Lovet’s home.”

Louvaen hiccupped a gobbet of blood.  The gray shroud misting her vision darkened until there was only blackness and Jimenin’s voice issuing orders.  Even that faded to silence and the terrible pain finally eased.